Other VanOrden Posts

Sunday, June 2, 2013

I kicked my healthy lifestyle into full gear this week. After enjoying DQ blizzards and fast food while
on our trip from Alaska, it was time to get serious again. It seems there are
two essentials once we get to retirement: to have sufficient health to enjoy
life, and having sufficient money to not worry about the future.

Since getting home from Alaska I have lost seven
pounds. I am back to eating six small
meals per day and drinking more water. For
details on how I lost 50 pounds, go to my other blog at http://weightlosspowerusers.blogspot.com/.

I started working and saving $ when I was 13 years old. I lied about my age so I could caddy at
Knollwood Country Club near Chicago. It
was a wealthy man’s club back then and I made some decent money. If I carries double golf bags and went out
for two 18 hole rounds, I could make $20.
Now remember that was in 1965 when minimum wage was $1.25. So I have been working for most of 47 years.

I paid for my own education and was married 39 years ago at
age 21 to an amazing women. We still
enjoy being together. We have been on
our own financially. I got to retirement
but still worried about how long our money would last since we might need it to
live for another 25+ years.

I must have crunched the number a 100 times before and since
retirement. We do a financial assessment
weekly now to track our bills and net worth.
Our goal is to keep our net worth increasing by a minimum of 5% yearly
since historically that would beat inflation.

Our investments have done well this year since the stock market
has been on the rise. We know that won’t
always be the case. So we have done two
things, diversify our investments, and start online businesses. Our investment portfolio
has increase 15% this year, and our online businesses are in the plus column
after two years of development.

My wife Jeannie is doing a venture with our son Mike. I own two website and two blogs. Revenues come from advertising and when a
follower signs up for a subscription with an affiliate. I am an internet marketing consultant helping
friends and followers learn how to develop their own online business.

The real key to earning on the internet is to attract
traffic by providing useful content. The
more who see your websites the more money you make. After some time, you can figure it statistically
right down to how much you will make per hit.
I have almost 17,000 hits on my two Blogs. That’s really not bad, but it could
improve. Many of the people who see my
posts are people I have never met in person, but they are quickly becoming
cyber friends.

Here’s the bottom line: I am an advocate of saving as much
money as you can as early in your career and owning your own online business.
The success stories are starting to pile up and I am so pleased people are
developing the confidence to give it a try.
Great adventures await.